26th February 2025

26th February 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Ezekiel 24 focus v6-14)


Message (Alan Burke)


When we were young I doubt we thought too much about getting old, about how the strength of our hand would fail, we thought life would always be this way. It is hard to imagine things that we aren’t facing ourselves but time marches on and things don’t stay as they were when we were young. We can all make assumptions like this. The people of God had made an assumption that they were as safe, why because of the walls of Jerusalem that surrounded them. In addition the people were confident in the promises of the Lord, that they would be fine because they were his chosen people and the Lord had promised that one of David’s sons would rule forever (2 Sam 11-16). They ignored their sin and were deaf to the warnings of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Here the judgement is coming and the Lord as he gives it in parables speaks of the cooking pot that they themselves had used to speak of their security. 


But as the Sovereign Lord speaks again it is that of Woe, woe to the city of bloodshed. Jerusalem was called thus by the Lord for the moral and ritual abominations that it had done in the sight of the Lord. The Lord is now making it clear that this is about them.


The pot that had been placed on the fire was now left encrusted, there was no rescuing the pot. Like if you leave a pot on the hob for too long without any water on it would be a mess, but this cooking pot had the burnt remains of what was in it. What seemed like a sacrificial meal that was to be enjoyed is now fit for nothing but to be thrown out, it has been spoiled and unable to be salvaged. It would be emptied piece by piece, figuratively speaking of what would happen once the siege had ended, no lots would be cast because it was worth nothing but to be thrown out, and when emptied the pot it was still an encrusted mess, worthless and unusable.  If the people had missed what the Lord was saying through Ezekiel, it is now made clear in v9-12. The imagery returns to the cooking pot but the cooking pot is the city of bloodshed, Jerusalem. The Lord is the one who would pile the wood high, heap the wood, kindle the fire. The contents of the pot were charred, and then poured on the fire. Showing that there was no hope for Jerusalem and its inhabitants because of their moral and ritual abominations, then destruction was certain.


The pot in effect had been put in a furnace by the hand of the Lord, like a crucible in a refiners fire, so that the impurities would be removed. But the pot has frustrated all efforts of being refined, even the heavy deposits were not removed even by fire. What this is referring to is that Lord had began this refining his people with the first exile when his people were deported in 605BC then it happened again in 597 BC and now in 587 the Lord had had enough. In the 18 years that had passed since the cleansing had began the people were obstinate in their sin, they would not turn from moral and ritual abominations. The defilement of his people was such because of their moral and ritual abominations that the deposits on the pot had not removed. 


Then in v13-14 the Lord lays out that their impurity is lewdness, but it is more, the Hebrew word has many meanings, crime, evil, immorality, wickedness. You could sum it up by sing because of their sinfulness, its corruption and how the Lord had tried to turn them from it yet they would not turn then his wrath had come upon them. Their confidence had been where they dwelt, in who they were, in promises they had not understood not in the Lord and so they would face woe, they would face his wrath until it had subsided. Their time of judgement had come, he would not have pity, he would not relent, they would be judged  according to your conduct and your actions, declares the Sovereign Lord. 


They had ignored the warnings given by the Lord God. The Lord through Peter gives us a warning of how; …in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4 They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” (2 Pe 3:3–4). Judgement is coming. The Lord had been patient with his people, he was long-suffering but no more, his patients had run out. The Lord is long suffering towards us but there is a day coming, repent now while it is the day of salvation, the people of God though there would be many more days but the day of his wrath was upon them, today it may be upon you and all of us should know that the day of the Lord’s judgement will come like a thief in the night (1 Thes 5:2). And when it does the fire of the wrath of God will come. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q17 Into what estate did the fall bring mankind?
The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery.
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